Well, it’s a ridiculously beautiful day here in So. Cal, and I’m sitting here watching the Rose Parade on TV, even though it’s only about 50 miles away from us. You’d think I’d manage to get there one of these years. In years past, I’ve actually collected my family into the car and forced them to drive up to Pasadena after the Rose Parade, when all the floats are on display on Colorado Boulevard. They line them up in rows, and you pay a little admission fee (I think it’s $7 per adult nowadays) and you can wander the aisles and look at the floats up close. I used to go when I was a child, with Ann Marie and her family (when admission was probably a quarter). And even though we were just two giggly 11-year-olds, I recall being truly flabbergasted at seeing the floats up that close: The painstaking work involved at lining little fennel seeds up in 48 rows just to make an eyeball iris is absolutely stunning.

Anyway, I keep dragging my family up there, not to see the actual parade but to see the floats afterward – I don’t know if I just want to recreate the wonder I experienced as a child, or (like Ann Marie’s mom) do my kids the favor of introducing them to amazing work of people with flowers. But the point is, we never quite make it. Continue reading →